The workshop was prepared and conducted by Luisa Colombo from InsideOut People consulting and María Cortés Astudillo from Agile For Life consulting.
We started by defining the challenges in working remotely. To do so we were divided into several breakout rooms of 3-4 people and wrote our findings on the sticky notes on a Miro board. Some of the main challenges were : building trust, lack of social interactions, active collaboration, isolation.
Next step was discussion on competences to develop to face remote working. Again we went into breakout rooms and placed our sticky notes on another Miro board. Some of the competences that were noted are : respect, discipline, moderation skills, patience.
With these findings we moved to the next activity, self-regulation.. Luisa explained the brain in the hand model for Self Regulation and Emotional intelligence. It is in fact a hand model of the brain that helps us to see how the brain functions. When we can see what the brain does only then we can change what it does.
Picture 1
Next to come was the Listening activity. The context was a Team Lead who is announcing the problem to the project manager. There were 3 different role plays – not listening, listening and effective listening. It was easy to see the difference between effective and ineffective listening. While effective listening was full of empathy, providing options of working together, ineffective listening was quite opposite.
Picture 2
The last activity was the Feedback activity. The context was a 1-2-1 conversation in a work environment where your project manager / manager was going to give you some feedback. Maria facilitated role plays showing the difference between empowering and discouraging feedback. We could see what it looked like not receiving any support or when no solution was offered as opposed to supportive, encouraging feedback.
Picture 3
Empowering People with respect and dignity, through:
- connection and self-regulation
- listening and compassion
- respect in relationships and empowering feedback
Important components are self awareness, awareness of others and ability to cooperate. Become a servant leader by being firm and kind.
We ended the session by placing our sticky notes on the Takeaways board. Here are some examples :
- Make time in meetings to talk about other things than work.
- Make myself more available/supportive to my teammates.
- Be aware of people’s emotional state.
- Take distance to observe.
I personally liked the rôle plays as they made the differences so obvious making an immediate effect on all participants. If you have a chance, I suggest you attend one of the workshops that Luisa and Maria are facilitating.